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From: Fran Baker <fran@gershwin.dgii.com> Subject: Re: Free investigation vs. threats Date: Wednesday, August 19, 1998 6:08 PM xensky@aol.com writes: >This is my meaning: Say I have a child who thinks he knows it all and does >not wish to admit that he is under my authority. Say it is the ad of Winter >outside and I warn him that he must put on his coat, hat and mittens before >he ventures outside. Many times Baha'is fall back on this metaphor: the adult human being as child who just doesn't or can't know enough to question the religious authority. Not only is this an insulting metaphor, it collapses on itself...if I judge the metaphor apt, am I not using my much-maligned rational faculties? Or is the listener supposed to experience a kind of satori? It is not arrogance or a claim to know everything that causes people not to accept such authority; what is lacking is not humility (though it may be docility); skeptics usually simply don't believe that this "divine authority" is something that exists. To submit to an authority freely means to have made some decision about the appropriateness of doing so; that appropriateness with regard to Baha'u'llah is not at all obvious to most people. This is why there is no Entry by Troops. These metaphors do not make it more obvious. Similarly the metaphor of each religion being a grade in school; one isn't really better than the other, but still one must progress (in some way that isn't supposed to imply any invidious comparisons) from one to the other. It is very naive (at the least) to think Jews, Christians, and Muslims will think that is simply swell and hop on board. Fran Homepage |